Cherry wine cellar door

(with apologies for the less that optimal photos) I made this door for my neighbors after we came back from a wine tasting banquet at a local vineyard. (I was more inclined to sample the food than the wine but I was also impressed with the wooden attributes of the winery.) My neighbor was also impressed with the main door and she asked me if I could make a similar one for her wine cellar. She preferred Cherry but left the design up to me. Her husband requested that I make it a sliding door and provided -as a convenience to me – the barn door rail.

The inner panels – starting with 4/4 lumber – were tongue and groove-V jointed using a two piece router set and are set into a groove in the rails and stiles of the frame. The full length panel boards are separated by the middle rail. I did this for both stability and appearance but I wanted to keep the board’s grain in line in spite of not being contiguous. The rails and stiles – starting with 6/4 – are held together with half inch walnut dowels (store bought) except for the two large dowels at the top (turned at home). Except for securing the dowels no other glue was used. I bandsawed the cocobolo handle and rounded it over using a combination of router bit and spindle sander and attached it with threaded inserts and machine screws.

To keep the door from flopping when when being moved, I machined a threshhold track from an 8 foot oak board with a wide flat bottom groove for the door and a slightly steep approach slope on the outside edge. I cut the groove by making multiple passes on the table saw to remove most of the waste (raising and lowering the blade as needed and closely following my PROMINANT start and stop marks) and finished it flat with boattail ends using a hand held guided router.

This project also required me to do a lot of unseen construction on the wall. I cut out some sections of drywall to place braces to support the door rail. The drywall is attached to 3/4 inch firring strips glued to poured concrete studs so I needed to attach my braces to the studs and do as little removal of drywall as possible. (Fortunately I was not responsible for the drywall replacement, repair, nor painting- Whew!) With the drywall finished and painted I simply attached the rail to my braces with 4 inch lag screws and slid the door hangers in the track. I also had to fabricate the 1/2 inch walnut door frame trim from some decades old air dried boards. To keep the door from banging into the ends of my oak threshhold I was able to get a piece of polyurethane rod that slipped inside the door rail and cushions the rollers at the end of their travel.
I need to finish out the door way with some additional trim and a threshold filler piece of oak (by the way, pic 3 is from the inside). This door has also led to requests for two enhancements to their pool room which will be posted later.
Thanks for viewing, more projects coming soon Marc

-- Windsurfing, Woodworking, and Woodducks